The Honeymooners
by kcl71
Summary: Duke and Anna's Honeymoon in Scotland. Circa 1987.
1. Chapter 1

Wednesday, 21 October 1987, Lochbuie, Isle of Mull, Scotland

Duke and Anna parked the tiny rental car just past Lochbuie Church and trudged up and over the hill, hand in hand, toward the ruined keep. "Here it is," Duke said, indicating the tumbledown walls of craggy, rough-hewn stone. "It's all that's left of my illustrious ancestry," he said with a wry half-smile. "Moy Castle. My mother's mother's mother was a Maclean-it's their plaid I wore for the ceremony."

"And that you wrapped me in," Anna added impishly.

"That, too," Duke grinned at her. "Watch your step," he warned her as they walked up to the entrance door.

He let Anna precede him inside, and their footsteps echoed loudly off the stone floor. "Look at that view," Anna breathed, spying Loch Buie framed by the opening in the wall that served as a window. She turned slowly in a circle, taking it all in. "What's this?" she asked, indicating a hole in the floor. Looking in, she saw reflected light-the cavity contained water. "A well. Indoor plumbing! It's nearly as well-appointed as the manor house," she joked.

"Not quite," Duke smiled. "That other hole over there is the latrine."

She wrinkled her nose. "And what about here?" She pointed to a wooden door in the floor.

"That, my love, is the dungeon."

"Really?!" she said excitedly. She reached for the large iron ring handle on the top of the door, as if to open it.

Duke grabbed her hand. "Don't be daft! You could be hurt, down there in the dark."

"Well, that's the point of a dungeon, now isn't it?"

"C'mon," Duke answered, still holding her hand. "Let's look at the rest." He pulled her after him, toward a spiral staircase built from the same stone that made up the rest of the structure.

"No sense of adventure," Anna lamented. Duke guided her ahead of him again as they climbed the stairs. They briefly explored the long, narrow chamber on the second floor, and then ascended the stairs again to the top level, peering through the turret windows as they went.

Up in the garret, Duke wrapped an arm tightly around Anna's waist, standing well back from the parapet. He didn't like heights-never had-though he was willing to brave it to show Anna all the splendor that was Scotland. With her at his side, he felt, there was nothing he could not face. "Look," he pointed, extending his other arm to indicate a pastoral dreamscape in the distance. "There're your sheepdogs."

Anna rushed toward the parapet and leaned out over the low defensive wall to get a better look at the black-and-white border collies that were tearing around a field and nipping at the heels of a bleating flock. "The sheep-they'll make blue jumpers," she smiled, looking at the fleeces marked with cerulean paint to distinguish them from those of neighboring farms.

She walked along the garret to the opposite side of the tower. "God, it's so gorgeous," she marveled, leaning against the outside wall and looking out again over the loch. Suddenly, the ancient mortar of the battlements began to give way beneath her-the lichen-covered sandstone disintegrating under her weight. She let out a short, startled scream as she nimbly jumped back away from the boulders that were plummeting three stories and smashing on the ground below.

"Anna!" Duke yelled, grabbing her and pulling her into the safety of his arms. He crushed her against him and buried his face in her hair, kissing her head, then held her face between his hands and kissed her again and again.

"Duke...," she said, her voice unsteady.

"Are you alright? Say you're alright. My god..."

"I'm fine. Yes. I'm fine," she asserted, recovering.

"Let's get the hell out of here." He began to hurry her back toward the stairs, going ahead of her and tugging at her hand clasped in his. "Come on."

"Duke." She pulled at his arm, holding him back. "Duke, it's alright. Look at me. It's okay. Really."

"What do you mean, 'It's alright?' Of course it's not. You could've been killed."

"It _is_ alright. It is. You 'saved' me," she insisted irreverently, trying to talk him down from what she saw as his overreaction. "My dark knight...," she cajoled, smiling adoringly at him and caressing his furrowed brow and then the inkiness of his hair. "…In wooly armor...," she teased, running her hand down the front of the thick sweater he wore beneath his tan jacket.

He sniffed dismissively but could not prevent a flattered half-grin from creeping over his face. Anna grabbed a fistful of the sweater and pulled him to her for a kiss. He embraced her and then broke his mouth from hers to look at her, his heart skipping a beat at the sight of her, so vibrant and beautiful with the brisk autumn breeze stirring wisps of her hair around her rosy cheeks. With adrenaline still coursing through their veins, he kissed her again, smiling.

Still clutching his sweater, she turned and backed herself up against the thick, solid wall of the tower turret. Duke kissed her neck and slid his hands beneath her sweater. Her skin erupted in gooseflesh and she laughed, "Your hands are cold!"

"Mmm," he murmured against her ear. "And you are so warm." His hands roamed over her belly, ribs and back. "So hot..." He kissed her mouth again and leaned against her, and Anna drew warmth from the heat of his body and the feel of him, hard and enticing through his jeans. She thrust her hips toward his in a slow grind against the bulging denim, and he moved with her, both of them exhilarated by the ascetic friction.

Before long, Duke pulled back with a quiet groan, and knelt in front of her. His hands, warm now from their extended travels under her sweater, lifted that apparel, and his mouth played across her belly. Anna moaned softly and stroked his hair, and his agile fingers released the button of her jeans, drew down the zipper, and pulled the denim along with her panties over her hips and down to her ankles. She gasped loudly at the shock of the cold air hitting her moist, most private places-and then again, more softly, as Duke's warm mouth covered those same secret spots. "Mmmm," Duke hummed against her with a vibration that reverberated through her entire body. "The sweet cream does rise to the top, doesn't it, luv?" He chuckled, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Anna twisted her fingers into the waves of his hair and gave a sharp tug, playfully scolding, "Oh, shut uuuup!" with a groaning laugh. He laughed with her, the sound deep and muffled against her, and Anna was eminently grateful that she'd somehow been singled out for a lifetime of this-this joy...this lusty love and laughter. Duke held her gaze, and she watched his eyes gleam warm as jade while he tongued her precisely and accurately. So quickly, he teased her keen climax from her, making her brace her back against the wall as her clit beat like a second heart and her elated laugh was lost in the wind.

Duke rose from his knees and stood, so close to her, while freeing himself from his now torturously tight jeans. With a quick, fluid motion, he was inside her and lifting her from the stone floor, pinning her between the wall and his pivoting hips.

 _Marvelous_ , he thought. She felt marvelous. He couldn't think of anything on earth or in heaven-or even in hell, for that matter-that could be better than this moment with his beautiful Anna in his beautiful homeland on a beautiful day. And the best of it was that he and Anna could look forward to a lifetime of days and nights that were just as sweet.

Duke's sanguine train of thought and Anna's ready body had him hurtling toward ecstasy, and he notched up his tempo to get there all the faster. "Storming the castle, are we?" Anna giggled of his particular enthusiasm.

" _You_ shut up, now, lady." He punctuated the growling laugh with a grinding, piercing thrust.

"Oh..." Anna's face and voice lost just a little of their teasing quality. "Do that again...," she continued as she felt the promise of another climax, deep inside her. She hadn't expected that, but she wanted it, she realized, as Duke hiked her a few inches farther up the wall and repeated the performance with a husky chuckle. Then he was forging on, single-minded. She'd meant to let him, to allow him the quick, selfish pleasure he'd granted her. But this feeling within her was as compelling as pain-if he didn't soothe it, she felt, it might kill her. The DVX and WSB had trained her to bear all manner of physical challenges and tortures, yet somehow even that had not prepared her for this merciless pleasure Duke inflicted every time their bodies came together. "Wait...," she pleaded laughingly, surprised by how much she dreaded him leaving her behind.

"Are you serious, woman?" Duke asked raggedly, completely caught up in the feel of her.

"Yes, yes, wait. Please..."

Duke body-checked her again, with a rough groan through clenched teeth that he then sank into the thick layers of jacket and sweater covering the slope of Anna's shoulder. She laughed again as he made what seemed a superhuman effort to slow his rutting hips. "Greedy bloody minx," he grumbled.

Anna turned her head to kiss his ear, mocking, "Oh, you poor, poor thing," as she clamped her thighs more tightly against his hips. He had managed to still himself but for an occasional lone thrust, and Anna reveled in the intensity of the moment, loving his gorgeous face next to hers, his strong, warm body pressing against her, his hefty cock buried inside her-even the rough stone wall at her back and the cold air that swirled around them. It was easy, as she kissed his temple and clenched her tensed body around his, to let the pleasure well up inside her until it came flooding over her. She clung tightly to Duke and moaned his name as she came.

Duke gave her a peck on the lips and then another, more thorough kiss. "Happy now?"

"Very happy," she smiled breathlessly, her heart thudding loudly in her chest.

"Good." Duke kissed her again, his hips moving purposefully once more. Her interruption had only redoubled his arousal, he realized, feeling himself on the verge of an orgasm that had grown in intensity with every second she had postponed it. "Good," he repeated, thinking only of himself now as his cock throbbed within the warm, wet embrace of Anna's body. "Uh, that's good... So good... Good..." He pressed his face into Anna's hair again as he exploded inside her. "Uhhhhhhh..."

Trying to kiss Duke, Anna got a mouthful of wooly turtleneck. "This honeymoon is great," she laughed sincerely, pulling her face back.

"Uh-huh," Duke gasped. "I'm enjoying it." He set her back down on the ground, and they both rearranged their displaced clothing, shivering.

"So, what now, then?" Anna asked, thinking that they seemed to have exhausted the possibilities of the old castle.

"Would you like to have some lunch? Meet some of my family? I've some cousins on the way back to the manor house."

"Your family? Really? I'd love to meet them. Of course I would."

"Come on, then," Duke told her, taking her hand in his and leading her back to the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

This scene takes place after Duke and Anna's attempt at fishing in Scotland. It may have gone better had they both not ended up in the water.

* * *

"Let's take a bath together," Duke directed his wife.

"Hot water. With no fishes. Right?"

"We'll see."

"Oh, come on...," Anna protested.

"You come on." He took her hand and led her into the sumptuous bathroom.

The room was still adorned with massed candlesticks, the remnants of the storm the night they had arrived, and he put a matchstick to a grouping of them, bathing the surroundings in a warm, dim glow-darkness fell early and quickly in Scotland in autumn. "Run the tap, there," he instructed Anna, illuminating one after another of the makeshift candelabras. "Ow," he complained as the match burned down and singed his fingertips, and he shook it out and dropped it, then blew on his fingers and stuck them quickly into his mouth to soothe the burn. He lit another match and listened to the pounding flow of the water as he patiently completed his chore, and the room slowly began to fill with steam. Once all the wicks were alight, he moved to stoke the fire in the hearth, throwing on a few more logs to ward off the chill.

By the time he turned away from the fireplace, Anna had shed her soaked clothing and pulled her hair free from its braid, and Duke watched her bending naked over the bathtub, swirling her hand through the water like a naiad in a Waterhouse painting before turning off the faucet. She rose and stepped over the side of the oversized cast-iron claw-foot tub, easing herself down into the scalding water and billions of billowing scented bubbles. Duke smiled at the sight, and stripped down, letting his wet clothing fall onto hers in a puddle on the fieldstone floor. "Shove over," he said to her, and she moved into the center of the tub, smirking, so he could join her.

He sighed heavily as he sank down into the water and leaned back against the end wall of the tub, resting his arms along the edges. Anna reclined against him, her back to his chest. She slid down beneath the surface of the water, submerging herself to rinse the cold loch water from her hair, and came back up dripping. She laid her head against Duke's shoulder and they both stared silently out the picture window at the moon and her mirror image in the flat, black surface of the lake.

"I was wrong: Not a mermaid," Duke offered, recalling their predawn pillow talk of an earlier morning. "A selkie, maybe."

Anna shifted to one side and twisted her head to look up at him quizzically. "A selkie?"

He stroked her glossy dark hair back from her forehead, and she turned to face him. "It's old Scots folklore. A mythical, magical seal that sheds its skin to become a beautiful woman. Unless her husband hides her sealskin, she might return to the sea, and he'll wake to find her gone."

"There's not much chance of that. I much prefer this nice warm bath to the North Sea." She kissed him. "Are there male selkies?" she asked curiously, scrubbing some of the bubbles through his hair.

"Mm-hm," he grinned with satisfaction as her fingers vigorously massaged his scalp. "As human men, they're very handsome, and they have great powers of seduction over mortal women. A male selkie usually seeks out a bonny lass who's lonely and longing for romance."

"Ssssselkie!" she accused him, raising her parted lips to his mouth, her tongue between her teeth as she hissed the word. She slipped her tongue into his mouth to meet his, and he pulled her tight against him and then pushed her across the tub to the far end, pinning her beneath him and sloshing water over the sides and onto the floor. She rolled him back under her and sat in his lap, the two of them tumbling and laughing like playful seal pups.

Duke dunked his head beneath the water to rinse away the bubbles, then ran his hand back through his hair. "Or maybe an ondine-it's like...the Celtic version of a siren. I've no doubt you could lure a man to his death."

Anna shivered as a frisson traveled down her spine, and Duke squeezed her close into the warmth of his arms. "What an awful thing to say," she scolded quietly. "Don't say such things. I mean to take good care of you, for a long, long time."

Duke kissed her forehead, chastened. "Shhh. I'm counting on it, luv."

"I'm happy just to be your wife. A flesh-and-blood woman."

"Mmmm." He slid his hands down her sides, along her rib cage, and blew a cloud of bubbles off her breast-the puff of his breath and the popping suds tickled her. "Such delectable flesh." He sucked her nipple into his mouth, rolled it around under his tongue, tugged gently with his teeth. "Warm, pulsing blood." He nipped at the soft, round side of her breast, where a faint blue vein glowed through her pale skin, then soothed the pink bite marks with his tongue.

"I'm getting hungry," he suddenly announced matter-of-factly, sitting back against the end of the tub again.

"Oh," Anna said, a bit baffled. "Well, Mr. Graham's laid that lovely table..."

"Who said anything about food?" he grinned.

Anna beamed back at him. She stood up, lifted her hands to the nape of her neck, and twisted her hair into a long coil, wringing the water from it, as Duke smiled up at her appreciatively. She stretched to snatch a thick towel from a warming rack next to the fire, wrapped it around herself, and stepped from the tub. Duke followed, wrapping another towel around his waist. Then they wrapped themselves in each other's arms and shared a long, slow, deep kiss.

They moved into the bedroom and next to the bed, and Duke grasped the end of Anna's towel where she'd tucked it into itself. She slowly pirouetted away from him, unwinding the towel, and he let it drop to the floor as it fell fully away from her body. "Lovely," he smiled at her. He approached her again and kissed her, guiding her down onto the bed.

He proceeded to demonstrate that his claims of hunger had not been just lip service-they involved teeth service and tongue service too. His mouth and hands moved voraciously over her skin until she was aching for more. Anna's hands moved to his waist to remove the towel that was now pitched as steeply as a terrycloth tent, and before she could relieve him of it, he broke off and rolled onto his back.

"Up here." He puckered his lips at her in a kiss, tapping the tip of his index finger against them, and Anna felt as if all of her insides had liquefied.

"And tell you that I love you?" she joked, thinking of the Monty Python song as she did as he wanted, her knees sinking into the pillow on either side of his head, and she grasped the top of the bed's headboard for much-needed support.

As his tongue had its wicked way with her, her thighs trembled, and she moaned and leaned her forehead against the hard cherry bedstead. She found herself staring into the face of the naked cherub painted there, and the little cupid looked back with what seemed a knowing, less-than-angelic smile. "Oh god," Anna moaned quietly, closing her eyes. She clung harder to the bed, her breasts pressed up against the smooth wood as she writhed atop Duke's mouth, feeling that her entire being was concentrated down to the point beneath his tongue. "Oh, I do love you..." Duke cupped her buttocks in his hands and slipped his thumbs inside her, holding her still as he devoured her. "Duuuuuuuke," Anna moaned, feeling herself expand again as she came, her climax radiating out from the spot under the tip of his tongue until it encompassed her whole body.

He sucked gently at her for a few moments and then slid out from between her legs. Finally taking off the towel, he wiped his mouth with it and dropped it, then knelt behind his wife, who was hanging breathless from the headboard. Kissing her shoulder, he mounted her, pushing himself into her with a deep grunt of satisfaction. He wrapped one arm around the front of her to toy with her breasts, and his other hand trifled with her clit.

Anna closed her legs, tightening herself on Duke's cock and fingers, and moved her hips in time with his. "Ohhhhh, woman...," Duke moaned, kissing the side of her neck. "My wife..." He would never tire of calling her that, he thought, not even if they could somehow be married a thousand years. "I love you, too." The bed creaked beneath the rocking of their bodies, and Anna whimpered with pleasure as Duke increased the force and velocity of that motion, the thick head of his cock angling into her to repeatedly hit just the right, ultra sensitive spot.

Duke pushed Anna fully up against the headboard, banging her hips off it, and thrust hard into her as he began to come. "An-na... Uh...Uh...Uh..." Hearing him moan her name and feeling him jolting inside her as his fingers pressed against her, Anna again reached a pinnacle of pleasure, and she cried out and pushed back against him to take as much of him as he could give.

When their climaxes had subsided, Duke pulled Anna down onto the mattress with him, burrowing sideways into the pillows with her and sighing.

"I like this bed," he mused, lying there lethargically.

"You do?"

Duke grunted his confirmation.

"I didn't think you cared for antiques. Everything we've ordered for the house is contemporary. Your penthouse-it was all modern."

"Nevertheless: I like this bed."

"O-kay," Anna said slowly. "Well, hopefully you'll also like our own bed. Our new one. In our house."

"Mmm. I'm sure we will. In our house. I love the sound of that, you know."

"Me too. We're going to be so very happy-you, Robin, and I. And Filomena, of course."

"Mm-hm. We will be. As happy as you and I are right now. So happy. And hungry."

"Again?" Anna laughed.

"For food, this time. For now." He lifted his head from the pillow and looked toward the table set with china and serving platters under domed covers. "D'you think it's cold yet?"

"Probably. I don't care, though. I'm starving."

"You are?"

"Well, yes. You kept me out at that bleedin' lake all day, on that wild fish chase. You know, I don't believe there even _are_ any fish in that lake."

Duke was indignant. "Of course there are. I caught one! Until you threw it back."

"I bet it was the last one. They've all been eaten by some prehistoric beastie."

"I told you, this is _not_ Loch Ness."

"Or one of your whatyoucallits. Almondines."

"Ondines," Duke laughed. "You think the loch is full of trout almondine? I don't know whether you're more hopeless at catching fish or cooking them, woman."

"Can we just eat, please?" Anna huffed indignantly.

"Yes," Duke laughed. "Yes, let's eat." They rose from the bed, and each pulled on a dressing gown. They made their way to the small dining table by the fireplace, and Duke lifted the lid from one of the serving plates. "Voila." Looking at the meal, he laughed. "Here's your trout ondine, luv."

"Is it really? See? I knew we needn't have stood around staring at the water all day. The fish have come to us," she said smugly. "I won't do it again," she threatened.

"We'll see. Eat your dinner," Duke said, pulling out a chair for her.


	3. Chapter 3

"I know what you're thinking," Anna said as she sat at the foot of Duke's chair, caressing his fingers that were curled around a wine glass.

"Yeah, thank you for not talking about it. It won't be easy leaving here tomorrow."

"I know."

"I bought this house for you. I didn't mean to sell it, but...well, I had no choice."

"You mustn't be sad about this. Things don't matter. I mean, we've got a lifetime to accumulate them. What's important is...now-this magnificent night."

"For one more night, eh, we're laird and lady of the manor?" Duke smiled melancholically. "Give us a kiss, mi'lady." He reached out to stroke Anna's hair.

"As you wish,…my lord and master," Anna smiled playfully. She set her wineglass on the floor and rose to her knees between Duke's legs, and he leaned forward to meet her lips, cupping her cheek in his hand. Duke sighed as they shared a slow, tender kiss. When they parted, Anna slowly loosened, knot by knot, the strings of her robe, then shrugged the red silk back off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Duke watched her, entranced, thinking that she was right: _She_ was all that mattered. And she was magnificent.

Anna moved close to him again, determined to banish all dark thoughts from his head. She slid her hands up the fronts of Duke's thighs, under the flaps of his robe, and closed one fist carefully around his balls and the other commandingly around his rapidly stiffening shaft. As he grew to full rigidity in her hand, she began to stroke him artfully, kissing his mouth sensuously. When her ministrations prompted a groan, she untied and opened his robe, covering his face with kisses as she did so. She shook her hair over his head and face, and let it sweep over the length of his body as she trailed kisses down his chest and abdomen on her way back to crouching on the stone floor. Finally, pushing her hair back from her face with one hand and holding Duke with the other, she bent her head to him and took him into her mouth.

"Who's mastered who, luv?" Duke exhaled, gripping his wine goblet and the arm of the chair tightly as he fell completely in thrall to Anna's unsparing favor. He watched her, mesmerized, until finally she recognized the sound that portended his climax. Still holding his shaft in her hand, she withdrew him from her mouth. She kissed the tip of him, took his glass from him and turned to place it on the table, rose from her spot on the floor, and sat primly on his lap.

Anna stroked Duke's cheek and kissed him wetly, and he ran his hands slowly over her naked body. He moved his mouth to her neck, and then to her breasts, and she mewled as he slipped his fingers between her legs. Her own fingers were still curled around his emphatic erection, and he sighed her name yearningly.

His voice reflected the wanting she felt, and Anna moved to straddle his lap. She grasped his cock again and nudged its thick head back and forth against her clit, teasing them both. By the time she finally aimed him lower, at her slick entry, he could not bear any more hesitation: He grabbed her ass in both hands and pulled her roughly onto him.

She began to move on top of him, rising and falling, her fingers working over her swollen clit, in pursuit of the pleasure that had been a hallmark of this wedding trip. Duke's hands helped guide her up and down the length of him. "Oooooh," she moaned, closing her eyes. "Yeeeeeesss..." She grasped the top of the chair behind Duke's back and leaned backward, moving quicker and harder and throwing her head back.

"Oh, god, Anna," Duke groaned, as she slammed herself hard against his lap in her fervor to have more of him, all of him, and then some. He held tight to her hips as he tried to direct her increasingly reckless motion. "Easy, luv."

"Please," Anna panted, but Duke wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close to his chest and held her there, restraining her. After a moment, he stood up from the chair, lifting her with him and remaining inside her. Anna wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her calves against his taut ass, and he supported her thighs as he carried her to the bed. He lay down with her, on top of her, and she made a noise of protest when he then pulled out of her.

"Shhh," he reprimanded her. "Lift your hips, luv." She did, and he tucked two of the overstuffed goosedown pillows, one on top of the other, beneath her bottom and lower back. Pressing his thumb against her clit, he penetrated her again, sliding deeply into the wet slope of her body, and thrust into her decisively, grazing her receptive front wall. Anna gasped, feeling as if he'd collided with every nerve ending in her body. "Yes?" he asked her as he crashed into her again, but she was past words and could only gape at him. She could barely breathe by the time her orgasm ripped through her, and she arched over the pillows without a sound.

Duke kept on, compelled by the unstoppable approach of his own climax. Anna whispered his name, watching him sloe-eyed, and he gritted his teeth against a roar as he finally felt the inevitable blast of pleasure.

Anna sat up on the stacked pillows and embraced her husband, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing him. She tumbled him onto the mattress with a throaty laugh.

"Your hair's still damp," he observed drowsily, stroking it.

"And tangled, now," she grimaced, trying to pull a finger through a snag.

"Get your brush. You haven't packed it away already? I'll get the knots out."

"It'll hurt," she pouted skeptically.

"I'll be gentle."

She kissed him and got up from the bed, picked up her discarded robe from the floor and pulled it on, then retrieved her hairbrush from her suitcase. Duke, meanwhile, retied his own robe, propped the pillows back up against the headboard, damp side down, and relaxed against them.

Anna sat down beside him and he took the brush from her. "I'm glad-ouch!" She flinched when, as predicted, the bristles caught.

"Keep still." Duke kissed her neck, she squirmed and giggled, and he resumed pulling the brush carefully through her hair.

"I'm glad we didn't book an early flight tomorrow," she continued.

"Yeah."

"We can have a leisurely breakfast. Stop down at the shops-I want to get one of those nice warm sweaters, for Robin. And maybe, one last time here, we can-"

"Go fishing," Duke interjected hopefully.

"I was going to say, 'Make love,' " Anna said, rolling her eyes in exasperation, "but if you'd rather..."

"Hm, no, that's good too," he conceded, making Anna laugh. "You must remind me: I should speak to Mr. Graham before we go."

"What about?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with. I need him to make some arrangements for me, is all."

"Arrangements?" Anna twisted to face him. She didn't like his evasiveness. "For what? We're leaving... This house has been sold... What could you possibly-?"

"Never you mind about it!" he scolded, kissing her to hush her. "We're not going to spend the last hours of our honeymoon quarreling, so don't even start. It's something good, and you'll find out soon enough. Trust me." He kissed her again.

He was right, Anna thought: She had no wish to argue with him. The past week had been idyllic, and she didn't want to spoil it. Whatever he was planning, so be it. They were married now, for better and for worse-and how bad could anything be that involved the innocuously ineffectual estate caretaker? "So long as these 'arrangements' don't make us miss our flight..."

"Not a chance. As much as I'd like to keep you here, all to myself, in Scotland, I miss Robin too."

"And I know she misses you. We're going to have such a wonderful life together, the three of us."

"Mm-hm. And maybe someday, then, we'll be more than three. I did promise to fatten you up on our honeymoon..." He poked her with the brush, just below the ribs.

"I think your cousins' Scotch ale's done that," Anna laughed, puffing out her cheeks and holding a hand to her belly. "I expect we'd best wait a bit on the other account, though."

"Ah, but someday..."

"Someday. Let's just enjoy being newlyweds for a while first, hey?"

"Good idea." He wrapped his arms around her waist, she linked hers around his neck, and they shared a kiss full of love and joy and promises.


End file.
